Bloodliner (19 page)

*****

Chapter 47

Tourists poured through the ancient ruins like pigeons swarming handfuls of bread. The bright midday sun made their water bottles sparkle and their white t-shirts and tennis shoes flare.

Jonah swung his sunglasses down from his forehead as he stepped off the Italian tour bus. "Which way to the dimensional portal?" he said. "Or the trap door to the underground realm?"

"Neither," said Stanza as she stepped off the bus behind him. "Herculaneum is a different animal."

"So how will we know if we've found a clue to Empyrea?" said Jonah. "You won't even tell us exactly what Empyrea is."

As expected, Stanza offered no comment. Instead, she helped Arthur off the bus. "Careful, your majesty."

"Thank you, milady." Arthur wobbled down the steps, holding on tight to Stanza's hand. The huge, wraparound sun-goggles he had to wear left him half blind.

"Let me help." Mavis moved in to take Arthur's free arm. "Watch your step now."

Stanza and Mavis guided Arthur up a paved walkway into the ruins, and Jonah followed. The paved surface gave way to polished gray cobblestones leading between rows of stalls and small buildings.

Jonah got a chill as he crossed the threshold and looked around at the ancient structures. He knew a little about the place from reading a brochure on the bus from Rome.

Over two thousand years ago, everything around him had been buried under mud by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Everyone living there had died, and the mud had preserved the town from deterioration by the elements. Like nearby Pompeii, also buried by the same eruption, the excavated ruins provided a window on the past.

"This way." Stanza turned down an alley leading off the main cobblestone street. The alley was mostly dirt and grass, with a few scattered cobblestones...and no tourists.

Jonah ran his fingers over the walls of ancient buildings as he passed. They were nothing special to look at, just the backs of stalls and sheds, some waist-high, some eye-level or higher.

They were built before Jesus Christ was born.

At the end of the alley, Stanza turned left, guiding the group down another cobblestone street. She walked through a gap in a low boundary wall that marked off a block of property with a big, boxy building in the center.

Stanza and Mavis helped Arthur through a doorway into the building, and Jonah followed. Inside, sunlight streamed through windows and the open ceiling into a huge space. Jonah thought it might once have been divided by walls and floors into multiple levels and rooms, but he wasn't sure.

I'd like to see this place the way it was before the eruption.

Stanza, Mavis, and Arthur gathered around what looked like a stone altar in the middle of the floor...or maybe it was just a table. As Jonah drew up to the group, Stanza scrubbed her fingers on the underside of the slab atop the altar. They came away caked with black grime flecked with tiny white specks.

Stanza thrust the dirty fingertips into her mouth. They were clean when she pulled them back out.

"Help yourselves, everyone." Stanza patted the altar. "Get a nice big taste."

Mavis grimaced. "Do we have to?"

Stanza grabbed Mavis' hand and rubbed it under the altar, then held up the dirty fingertips for Mavis to see. "You don't want to be left behind, do you?"

"What is it?" said Mavis.

"Nectar," said Stanza. "Like Nicolo wrote on the wall. Nectar of the gods."

Arthur dug in, caking up his fingers and licking them clean with gusto. "Delicious."

Jonah swiped one fingertip through the under-altar goop and inspected it. "Some kind of mold?" He looked sideways at Stanza. "Are you getting us stoned?"

"It's the doorway Nicolo wrote about." Stanza took another helping and stepped aside. "It's a doorway through time."

"You mean this will send us back?" Mavis still hadn't taken a taste.

"Only your astral form. Your spirit, your mind," said Stanza. "Your physical body stays here."

"Why doesn't that make me feel better?" Jonah sniffed the substance on his fingertip. It smelled a little like cinnamon...and a lot like a moldy basement.

Just then, Stanza's eyes flickered. Her legs seemed to weaken, and she caught herself on the corner of the altar. "Hurry up, everyone. I'm starting to fade."

Jonah didn't want to do it, but he felt like he didn't have a choice. Nervously, he stuck out his tongue and barely licked his dirty fingertip. When he took a second lick, the flavor jumped out at him.
Moldy basement.

"How do we know where we'll end up?" he said.

"I was
planning
to
direct
the trip," said Stanza, "but if you'd rather
drift
all alone into God knows
where
and
when
, be my guest!" With that, she stumbled over to a wall and sank down to the floor.

Reluctantly, Jonah scrubbed more mold from the altar and licked it from his fingers. With Arthur's gentle encouragement, Mavis gingerly managed a few licks of her own. Then, they all sat on the floor in a circle with Stanza.

"Trust me," said Stanza. "I've done this before. Now give me your hands." She reached for Jonah and Mavis on either side of her.

When Jonah and Mavis hesitated, Stanza resolved the matter by force, lashing out like a striking cobra to grab their hands. "Now focus on the circle," she said. "Focus on me. I'll do the driving."

As Stanza closed her eyes and swayed from side to side, Jonah started to worry that he'd be left behind. He had yet to feel the effects of the drug, though Stanza and Arthur looked like they were well underway. Mavis had a funny look on her face, too.

Maybe the nectar affected everyone differently. Maybe Jonah had a higher tolerance and needed another dose.

Would it hurt if I broke the circle just for a second?

Jonah was about to make a run for another taste of the mold when it finally hit him. Suddenly, the room around him flared with fiery red light...then went pitch-black. Jonah had a sense of lurching motion—pitching and swooping through space on a roller-coaster, then spinning in two directions at once at ridiculous speeds.

He thought he heard someone scream. Then, with a sudden jolt, the motion stopped. Looking around, Jonah wondered where he was.

He and the others, still holding hands, sat on the floor in a low-ceilinged room at night. Moonlight streamed through the sheer curtains on two catty-corner windows.

The room was small, maybe twenty-five feet across. There was an ivory bench under each window, piled with cushions.

The walls were covered with painted images, bursting with rich colors and bold red borders. The antlers of a deer—Jonah counted twelve points—hung on a plaque above the doorway.

And along the far wall, Jonah saw a familiar piece of furniture. It was draped in white cloth and heaped with apples and bunches of grain, but he still recognized it. And finally realized where he was.

It's the altar. I'm in the same building in Herculaneum. And everything's different.

*****

 

Chapter 48

"Am I dead?" said Mavis as she reached out and put her hand through the altar.

"Not dead," said Stanza. "And it's temporary. It'll wear off in a few hours."

Mavis shoved her arm through a wall up to her elbow. "Tell me I'm not a ghost."

"More like a soul," said Stanza. "A disembodied consciousness."

"I knew I shouldn't've eaten that mold," said Mavis.

Please God, don't let me be dead.

Even as Mavis prayed, she knew in her heart she hadn't died. She knew because her vision of the future had not come true yet, the vision she'd seen while drowning after escaping Lyonesse.

The vision in which she'd seen herself as a vampire.

Now there's a comforting thought.
I know I'm not dead because I haven't become a bloodsucking creature of the night yet.

*****

 

Chapter 49

Though Jonah had been told that he couldn't be hurt in his astral form, he instinctively stepped back when the hulking newcomer plowed into the room.

Though the man was closer to five feet tall than six, he bulged with huge masses of perfectly defined muscle. His body strained against the light brown, knee-length animal skin he wore, complete with the face and mane of a lion strapped over his left shoulder.

"These are the ones?" His voice sounded like it was blasting through a bullhorn.

"Yes, master," said Paetus.

The muscleman howled and tossed his head. Sweat flew from the tight curls of his black hair, and spit sprayed from his thick purple lips.

"I was
warned
about you," he said, black olive eyes glowering under a clenched-fist brow. His huge wedge of a nose knotted like rope as he snarled and glared at Arthur. "And I will
destroy
you."

Jonah took another step back.
Is that who I
think
it is?

The muscleman stomped up to Arthur and squared off chest-to-chest with him. "Aren't you going to plead for mercy?"

"There's been a mistake," Arthur said calmly. "Let me explain."

Without warning, the muscleman planted his massive paws on Arthur's upper arms, picked him up, and heaved him across the room like a sack of dog food.

Jonah whirled to face Stanza. "I thought you said they couldn't hurt us!"

"I said those
other
people couldn't," said Stanza. "
He
can."

"What?" said Mavis. "Why?"

"I am a
god!
" roared the muscleman. "I am the founder and king eternal of this great city!

"I am
Hercules!
"